From the enjoyments and pleasures of science, literature, and arts, they were necessarily excluded for ever. For, since the members of one caste could not encroach on the province of another, all persons not of the sacerdotal order, which preserved the monopoly of intellectual pursuits, must necessarily have been plunged in the profoundest ignorance, which will account for the prevalence of human sacrifices so late as the age of Amasis; and of animal worship, until their bestial gods were put to flight by Christianity. Ancient Egypt, if we draw aside the veil cast over it by ignorant admiration, was nothing but a nest of priests and slaves; for despotism itself was here subordinate to the sacerdotal tyrants, who either elevated a member of their order to the throne, or, when the sceptre had passed by unavoidable accident into the hands of another, associated its possessor with themselves. Thus it happened that Egypt produced neither poets, nor historians, nor artists, properly so called. By all these forms of intellectual exertion men address themselves to the people; and in Egypt the people were not only incapable of deriving either profit or advantage from such labours, but were absolutely excluded by the law from enjoyments of this exalted kind. Hence, to return to the point from which I set out, though the genius of the nation would appear to have qualified them for excelling in technical pursuits, none of the arts attained to per

fection in this country, and the greater number languished in cold mediocrity."*

Niebuhr, the best historian of the Roman commonwealth, says, "The history of Joseph, as given in the forty-seventh chapter of Genesis, is a most dangerous precedent for an artful man having power. 'Give me thy land and liberty, and I will give thee bread.'" The words of the sacred historian to which he alludes are these: "And Joseph bought all the land of Egypt for Pharaoh, for the Egyptians sold every man his field, because the famine prevailed over them; so the land became Pharaoh's. And as for the people, he removed them to cities from one end of the borders of Egypt even to the other end thereof. Only the land of the priests bought he not; for the priests had a portion assigned them of Pharaoh, and did eat their portion which Pharaoh gave them: wherefore they sold not their lands. Then Joseph said unto the people, Behold, I have bought you this day, and your land for Pharaoh: Lo, here is seed for you, and ye shall sow the land. And it shall come to pass in the increase, that you shall give the fifth part unto Pharaoh, and four parts shall be your own, for seed of the field, and for your food, and for them of your households, and for food for your little ones. And they said, Thou hast saved our lives: let us find grace in the sight of my lord, and

* Mr. St. John's Researches in Egypt.

we will be Pharaoh's servants.

And Joseph made a law over the land of Egypt unto this day, that Pharaoh should have the fifth part; except the land of the priests only, which became not Pharaoh's."*

The ruin of Egypt was the consequence of despotism in the monarchs, and slavery and immorality in the people. These are always the elements of decay. Even the site of some of its great towns cannot be traced

"Ruins whose very dust hath ceased to be."-J. E. READE.

Ozymandias, a magnificent king of Egypt in a remote period, the first monarch who formed a library, caused a colossal statue of himself to be erected, bearing a remarkable inscription. This survived when other vast works to which the inscription referred were utterly obliterated. The genius of a modern poet† will transmit to future times the memory of this vain appeal, when the statue itself shall be hidden under encroaching sand. are his verses:

"I saw a traveller from an antique land

These

Who said, 'Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shatter'd visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamp'd on these lifeless things,
The hand that mock'd them, and the heart that fed:

* Genesis, xlvii. 20 — 26.

† Shelley.

'MY NAME IS OZYMANDIAS, KING OF KINGS:
LOOK ON MY WORKS, YE MIGHTY, AND DESPAIR !'
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away."

From every investigation we can make respecting ancient Egypt, under great want of historical accuracy, (for Herodotus and Diodorus had not, even in their days, much information upon the subject,) it would appear that the Egyptian community was not civilised; that the magnificent structures were the work of an enslaved population, and that whatever knowledge existed was confined entirely to the priests, until the conquest by Cambyses, when they gradually relapsed into ignorance, as that conqueror and his successors on the throne never restored the priesthood to its former importance.

Except the mighty Pyramids, nothing remains of ancient Egypt but ruins and tombs. Isaiah prophesied against her, and Ezekiel foretold her fall.— "The sword of the king of Babylon shall come upon thee. By the swords of the mighty will I cause thy multitudes to fall, the terrible of the nations, all of them: and they shall spoil the pomp of Egypt, and all the multitude thereof shall be destroyed." *

*Ezekiel, xxxii. 11, 12.

49

CHAPTER II.

ANCIENT GREECE.

Remote Connexion of the Inhabitants of Egypt, India, Greece, and Italy. The Ancient Greeks deficient in the Requisites for Public Opinion. — Greek Barbarism and Absence of Moral Principle.- Licentiousness of Greek Females and Prevalence of Infanticide.-Commerce in the Grecian Republics extremely limited. Extent of Slavery in these States. Middle Class. Slaves, or Helots. - Reasons for the Absence of Commerce and Manufactures. - Fabulous Narrations of Greek Historians and Philosophers. - Passion for War and Violence. Downfall of the Grecian States.

It is a generally received opinion, that whatever information had in ancient days been acquired by any people, was derived from Egypt or from India, whence it flowed to Greece, and then to Rome and other parts of Europe. But unlike other inundations, as it extended itself it grew more shallow, until at length nearly all information was lost, and absorbed in the barbarism and ignorance of the Goths, Vandals, and other rude tribes of the North of Europe.

It might appear desirable to trace the source of information in India as well as in Egypt; but, as whatever degree of information the Greeks possessed was imbibed, in the first instance, from Egypt, we